The spirit of Chollima lives on Teesside

Before my fellow blogger Lanterne Rouge diverts our attention back to the previous season, a brief Championship related missive from the World Cup. Few Cocaleague-hosting towns will have divided loyalties during tonight’s game between Brazil and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, but fans of a certain vintage on Teesside may well be rooting for a draw. While Boro’s contemporary links with the land of Samba have been well documented (even if some of the individual imports turned out to be more Mr Benn than Jorge Ben), memories of North Korean football’s finest hour-and-a-half still linger on the housing estate formerly known as Ayresome Park, as this exemplary article from the Guardian website explains.

Stanley

As a kid, Stanley undertook an odyssey around the football grounds of London and North Kent before alighting at Millwall. Despite the efforts of Jason Dair and many others, as an adult he decided to move closer to the arena erroneously known as the New Den and is now a proud season-ticket holder.